


don't trust pretty things

by BrokenHorizont



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Five Kisses Challenge, Fluff, M/M, also slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 15:17:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10642527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrokenHorizont/pseuds/BrokenHorizont
Summary: don’t trust pretty things.some things just wash your rules away. or some people.





	

**Author's Note:**

> five times kissed challenge. 
> 
> n = 0, s = 1/2

**_n )_ **

japan is pretty. prettier than the desert, that’s for damn sure — although he has a vague feeling that thinking just because it’s nicer, the air feels lighter and smells better, and because not everything screams at you that it wants to murder you dead doesn’t mean it doesn’t actually want to do just that. in fact, he doesn’t trust it — doesn’t trust pretty things in general. they usual come with a bite. hidden teeth hurt no less just ‘cause they’re hidden — maybe more so, even, because you never see it coming until it’s too late and you got fangs in your throat dripping venom.

hanamura, with it’s color everywhere, looking soft as a fucking cloud, is too pretty.

he tells reyes, on the first evening. surprisingly, the man does consider it, and tell him he got an important lesson down that a lot of people never want to understand. he just has to stick with it.

don’t trust pretty things.

some things just wash your rules away. or some people.

 

**_s )_ **

a mission of such consequences takes time. he did expect as much. he did not expect days to stretch into weeks. the sickening sweet beauty of hanamura settles in on him. it clings to his clothes, his hair, his skin. it forces it’s way down his throat and sits in his blood.

back when he was a kid, lightening storms (or any kind, those just being the most spectacular, powerful, like a godlike creature emerging from the heavens to make sure it was not forgotten, would not be underestimated) would often roam over new mexico. you could taste it in the air. some electric spark, something that words fail to describe but that would invoke a certain kind of excitement of what’s to come deep in his bones.

he feels the same thing, here. it could be the mission, of course, but he never feels that way about a mission. (the last time something like this would wake, deep down buried in his chest, was as blackwatch annihilated deadlock. there was no other word for it. terrifying beautiful — as it’s the only kind of beauty he does understand.)

a feeling that twists, turned into something different that he cannot name, the day he meets the shimadas.

(if he had ever stood eye to eye with a wild animal, elegance all ready to tear his throat out, he’d know the feeling.)

 

**_i )_ **

trust is an interesting concept. it’s not that he ever actively thinks about it, but it does dictate so many things, or so it feels. one degree or another, some more important, some barely notable. but it’s there, always.

don’t trust pretty things. a concept his life might well rely on. it’s forgotten, abandoned now. the longer he stays, the more it lures him in. it’s not spring growing into summer. it’s not the way this place becomes familiar, offers itself up as a new home, at least for the time being.

reyes leaves him free reign over his own time, mostly. he’s still almost a kid, and nobody suspects a kid. or maybe they do, but less so than they would another. so he moves, freely. learns. admits to memory. the places, as much as the people.

or the way an archer takes aim, precise deadliness in every move. not just with a bow. it’s how he kills with words, gestures. how every move, every step, every word, every breath seems to be calculated, and ready in invoke havoc. destroy, ultimately, everything in it’s path if he wills.

it’s the most beautiful thing jesse has ever seen in his life. it scares him. but more than it scares him, it excites him.

(always reckless. always fascinated by the flame that might well consume him.)

he wonders if hanzo would love the same way. taking, taking, until there’s nothing left to give, and then, maybe — maybe giving you just enough back to survive.

(reckless. another word for: dumb behavior that will get you killed, sooner or later. rather sooner.)

it’s the last evening before everything will come down, one way or another. somehow, the thought makes something in his chest ache. it’s a terrifying feeling, one that he pushes down along any other he might feel.

when he moves, it’s with a grin that hides all of them. presses a quick kiss to the other’s cheekbone (first time he ever dared to come this close), saying it’s for good luck, and then he leaves before a reaction can be received.

his heart aches, but he doesn’t lose one word about it. it never stops, during the years it takes until he sees him again.

 

**_ii )_ **

don’t trust the pretty things. they will tear apart anything in their wake.

when they brought genji in, it was hard to believe what happened. or rather, it wasn’t — it was not hard at all. he could picture the scene just perfectly, illuminated in the light of a storm. it was that he did not want to believe. he did not want to think about it. did not want to imagine, and yet, it seemed as he was unable not to.

(stick to your lessons.)

if he did, maybe his guts wouldn’t feel like someone poured liquid fire inside his body, fire that could never fade. it turns and twists the yearning he carries so, so well hidden beneath his skin. it turns it into something different, a beast with no name. he’d love to say it’s an ugly one. that it would be something simple, like hatred, or just anger. it’s not. it’s majestic and it tears it’s fangs deep into his heart, rips on it and pierces damage that might — would — never fully heal again.

it made itself a home inside him. carries out along his aim, travels with his bullets. sits in the way he holds himself. it’s an elegant beast, but imperfect. it tries to copy. it tries to gain his favor. he does everything he can to drown it.

by the time they run into each other again — or rather, by the time he is, unprepared, forced to meet up against the force of nature who’s involuntary spawn made him and broke him and remade him — it has become so big a part of himself he barely remembers ever being without it.

there is anger. there is hatred. the beast overshadows them. it hungers.

he fights it. maybe he wants to be bitter. wants to be spiteful. wants to not forgive — not to forget. even if genji could let the man back into his life, he does not want to. if he does, he means handing his own fragile heart over, one that never stopped bleeding. it means, falling back into the same mistake.

don’t trust pretty things.

he’s weak. eventually, he gives in. he finds smiles given back when he does not want to, he finds harmless flirtatious comments given out, he finds a need to be close. it makes him want to tear his own skin off.

precision. move for the kill. did the archer plan for it? maybe. maybe not. maybe he’s just as pathetic as he feels. what he is, however, is a fucking coward — unable to face whatever it is that lives inside him. runs from it, and towards the one thing, the one man he wants to avoid.

it’s easier when he’s drunk, and when it’s late, and most are already asleep. it’s easier when his fingertips (not metal, never metal) trace the lines of a dragon. a beast. vicious and beautiful at the same time. finally, a name. it’s easier when he trails a single kiss onto ink, and can pretend he’s just slipping into an exhausted void.

coward.

 

**_iii )_ **

no matter how hards he fights, there is no denying that in some things, he has to trust. sometimes, it is small things — like he came to trust reinhardt to not break his bones when he gives a friendly clap on the shoulder (one he feels even vibrating all the way through his body and that resonates oddly in the place flesh becomes metal), or lucio not to wreck his hearing beyond repair. some things are harder — trusting that despite all that which has happened, people wanted him here, liked having him around, and if he doubts it, it’s hidden beneath a smirk and a tip of his hat — and some others seem near impossible. it seems near impossible to look ana or jack in the eyes like he used to. before he mourned them.

funnily, just trusting any of them to have his back in battle comes easiest. maybe because he fought his entire life, even when he didn’t carry a gun.

it’s scary how easy trusting hanzo comes back to him. he doesn’t want to. he doesn’t want to admit to it, doesn’t want to follow a path of which the first step will just tear him all the way down. might as well fucking have him take one of his arrows and force his through his chest — that’d hurt less, and would be much quicker. it scares him. scares him more than anything else ever did.

(coward coward coward)

it’s not that he gets a say, though. it feels natural, feels like breathing, and just as much he feels like suffocation, like drowning.

when he gives up, it washes over. except it’s been there the entire time, and the only person he’s been lying to is himself.

he’s drowning. he doesn’t care if he gets anything back when he breathes the archer in, when he practically attacks him with his desperation. when he’s having his hands entangled into the fabric and there’s nothing soft or tender about the way he kisses him. it’s a man dying trying to chase after just another heartbeat.

how hanzo doesn’t end him right there and then is a mystery. maybe he isn’t even worth the effort. maybe —

(don’t trust.)

 

**_iv )_ **

they fucked up. he doesn’t know who did (it’s entirely possible it’s been himself, but searching for guilt is for later, when he’s actually having time to spare for such unimportant things), but they fucked up, and when he hears dragons roar, his heart seems to stop and skip both at once. it’s both a good and a bad sign.

nobody should be up there. nobody should be —

he runs. doesn’t care that he would be an easy target himself right now (the thought does not occur, years and years of fighting and survival washed out in fear, and for once, he does not run from, but for). he runs, and he’s never been a religious man, but there’s a prayer on his lips to whoever will listen to him to please, please. not more. he does not get any further, because even thinking about it for the split of a moment — no.

(it’s not that he does not trust hanzo to watch out for himself, but if their hidden sniper had to retreat to the most obvious way of defense he had, it could not mean a good thing.)

there’s blood when he comes to a halt. destruction in their path, not for the first time he sees it, but nevertheless, it’s terrifying.

(beautiful in it’s absolute annihilation.)

there’s blood, and there are bodies. and in between, he finds him. exhausted, bloodied, but fine.

he didn’t know how much the breath in his chest hurt until he releases it, suddenly, and reaches out. caress over skin. unharmed. he could laugh, just from relief, and he does, and he still holds onto him when the laughing gets shut down, swallowed whole and devoured by the other man’s mouth.

with blood sticking to hanzo, and destruction all around him, he finds he’s never seen anything prettier in his life.

 

**_v )_ **

he’s never told anyone about some things. like the fact he barely sees color anymore, unless it’s red. sure, he sees it, but it’s faded out. everything seems to stand back while red shines bright, always. it comes with the dull pain that by now has become a constant companion, throbbing behind his eye. one day, his vision might just fully give up on him. you line up a shot, and the moment you pull the trigger — lights out. never talked about how much it scares him, either. and how he does not want to bring it up because, really, what use is a sharpshooter that you can’t use to shoot?

in return, he learns about dragons. it seems dumb, now, to complain about such a petty thing when there was something that could devour you whole the second it decided you no longer worthy. something insatiable.

he does not ask, but he wonders if it feels like your chest burns up, and seems to burst any moment come. he wonders if it feels like it has it’s fangs in your heart, and tears and tears.

the answer is one he fears too much to ask, so instead, he keeps silent for once, and listens. threads his fingers (never metal) through hair like silk while he enjoys the warm that radiates from the body leaned against his own.

sunsets on gibraltar are beautiful. maybe it’s because they turn everything red and allow him to acknowledge all the shades. maybe it’s because the most beautiful sight is the relaxed man next to him.

rules ought to have exceptions.

he seals his lips to the top of the archer’s — his archer’s — head, and keeps still.


End file.
